Engineering-society-1st-career-fair-7th-april-20103406289801

ADDRESS BY HON D. GOKHOOL,Minister of Industry, Science and Research‘ENGINEERING CAREER-ORIENTED FAIR 2009”
Wednesday 7 April 2010 at 10 00 hr Paul Octave Wiehe Auditorium, Reduit


Distinguished guests
Members of the Media
Ladies and gentlemen
And my Dear Students

A very good morning to you all. Thank you for your kind invitation and for the opportunity to make an address.

I welcome and congratulate all members of the Engineering family and future Engineers for this laudable initiative.

STI

Ladies and Gentlemen

We are gathered here because we want tertiary students and the general public to become familiar with the engineering companies, in fact with the engineering world, to know what changes are taking place in the field of engineering but also about the career opportunities.

As societies and civilization progress through the third millennium, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics will increasingly become a central policy issue.

We all unanimously recognize that the importance of main streaming and the integration of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in the development process and its critical importance in the attainment our socio economic development.

Also, it is a historically and internationally established fact that the world economy has been transformed by scientific developments, technological prowess and cutting edge innovation at different stages of its development. It is also a fact that civilizations have crumbled due to their inability to renew their knowledge pool. In this 3rd Millennium, the world has stepped into yet another era – the post Industrial era, where knowledge has emerged as a catalytic force for societal transformation.

“Knowledge has always been the prime mover of prosperity and power”. Creation, acquisition, application of knowledge to solve society’s emerging problems has become the thrust area throughout the world. In fact, scientific knowledge is the DNA of modern societies.

Economic and social progress critically hinges on investments and inputs from STI particularly in this era of globalization, which is characterized by the emergence of innovative and knowledge-based industries.


Challenges

That is why, National leaders and policy makers in Government Industry and Education are realizing that in order to maintain our strengths as industrialized nation, we must build a technologically literate citizen. As the world faces new challenges of better health, more abundant food, more human living and working conditions, cleaner air and water more effective education and scores of other improvements in the human conditions, we have having to face the challenges of development and application of new technologies. We have to bear in mind that it is the technological or human made world that facilitates 95% of our daily experience.

We also reckon that until now, school curricula have focused more on the natural world. A major step in transforming our societies will depend on the development of standards that describe what everyone should know and be able to know in the areas of technology and engineering. There is still widespread misunderstanding about the curriculum needed to support technological literacy. While speaking about the need for Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), there is often emphasis only on Science and Mathematics to the exclusion of Technology and Engineering.

Engineering

Engineering and technology are two sides of the same coin. Technologies are the processes and products that people have developed to solve problems or meet human needs and desires. Engineering is the practice of modifying or creating new technologies.
Engineering today and tomorrow will be aimed at bridging the gap between the abstract knowledge of Science and Mathematics and the critical problem we face in our world today and tomorrow.
Coming to engineering, historically, education for doing engineering has been a response to workforce needs for each new technology that appeared on the economic scene. But technology needs now to change so quickly that engineering education must be more than a response; expertise in a single discipline, or technology, is no longer the holy Grail for either a rewarded or rewarding career.

The modern engineer needs to be educated to thrive through change; else, engineer will become a commodity on the global market instead of society's enabler of wealth creation. The former is bought cheaply; the latter is more dearly valued.
Engineers must be enabled to grasp the opportunities for innovation rather than simply contribute to enhancing productivity. A critical element in the innovation process is scientific inquiry, an analytic, reductionist process which involves delving into the secrets of the universe to discover new knowledge. Innovation results when new knowledge is applied to tasks which are new and different, yielding brand new enterprises and delivering new products and services and new jobs.
Innovation, especially through engineering enterprise, is at the core of a healthy economy. This element of innovativeness lies at the core of 21st century engineering competence whether, for example, the project is a physically big, complex thing like a smart bridge or a tiny complex thing like a smart micromechanical system.
Career Paths
Given this capability, what are the fresh career paths? Well, no longer do they layer directly on traditional disciplines. Rather, next generation engineering career paths embrace complex systems issues. Examples include the issue of sustainability - avoiding environmental harm, efficient use of energy and materials, and life cycle engineering; infrastructure systems renewal; micro/nano systems which are simultaneously small in size and large in capacity and becoming ubiquitous to all product development.
How do we prepare our students toward this end? By examining engineering education and exploring innovations based on integrative and holistic approaches, we can shed light on a host of key issues facing the entire science and engineering enterprise as we move into a remarkable era we might dub as "knowledge and distributed intelligence."

In Mauritius we are taking initiatives to transform their rich reservoirs of natural resources into value products and establish a new foothold in the global market. Harnessing Science and Technology for Socio-Economic Development to raise public understanding of science, engineering and technology and their contribution towards socio economic development and improving the quality of life of our people.

This activity therefore assumes critical importance as it helps to lay the foundation for a new development paradigm driven by scientific and technological developments. Within this context of productivity and innovation, engineers will play an ever more significant role. The true wealth of a nation resides in its human capital -- especially its engineering workforce.
Engineers will develop the new processes and products and will create and manage new systems for civil infrastructure, manufacturing, health care delivery, information management, computer-communications, and so on. In general, they will put knowledge to work for society -- and in doing so, enable a huge potential for the private sector to create wealth and jobs.
To be personally successful in today's world and simultaneously promote prosperity, engineers need more than first rate technical and scientific skills. In an increasingly competitive world, engineers need to make the right decisions about how enormous amounts of time, money, and people are tasked to a common end. I would like to think of the engineer as someone who not only knows how to do things right but also knows the right thing to do. This requires engineers to have a broad, holistic background. Since engineering itself is an integrative process, engineering education must focus on this end.
For example, engineers must be able to work in teams and communicate well. They must be flexible, adaptable, and resilient. Equally important, they must be able to view their work from a systems approach, effecting connections, and within the context of ethical, political, international, environmental, and economic considerations.
The essence of engineering, on the other hand, is the process of integrating all knowledge to some purpose. As society's "master integrators," engineers must have the functional background to provide leadership in nurturing the concurrent and interactive process of innovation and wealth creation. The engineer must be able to work across many different disciplines and fields -- and make the connections that will lead to deeper insights, more creative solutions, and getting things done.
Leadership, management and organizational competencies are equally of great relevance to the engineering profession.
There is no doubt that our engineering graduates must have added value in order to compete in today's global marketplace. Yes, added value resulting from state-of-the-art knowledge, but even more -- added value garnered by probing the darkness in search of light; added value enabled by understanding risk; and added value gained through understanding and participating in the process of engineering throughout their educational experience.
It is therefore extremely pertinent that we sensitize students and the public in general of the need for more engineering students and graduates and about the challenges and opportunities in the engineering sector. Many countries are finding their development stalled because of lack of engineers.
I am therefore very pleased of your initiative to increase the exposure of our students and future students to the world of industry so that they are aware of the interesting challenges which lay ahead. It will be the beginning of an exciting journey especially, as the world is increasingly supporting and adopting a new mode of development where sustainability of our planet is at the very heart of all our preoccupations.
I now have the pleasure of declaring the Fair open and wish you all the success in attaining your objectives.
I thank you for your kind attention .
Thank You.